since that first dreadful night.

There was such a lively clatter of dishes downstairs and babel of
voices that he did not hear a sleigh drive up in the soft snow.

"Steven," called Mr. Dearborn from the foot of the stairs, "I promised
Mrs. Estel to let you spend the day with her, but there was so much
goin' on I plum forgot to tell you. You're to stay all night too, she
says."

The ride to town seemed endless to the impatient boy. He was burning
with a feverish anxiety to know about Robin, but the driver whom he
questioned could not tell.

"Mrs. Estel will be down presently," was the message with which he was
ushered into the long drawing-room. He sat down uncomfortably on the
edge of a chair to wait. He almost dreaded to hear her coming for fear
she might tell him that the Piersons would not give Robin up. Maybe
her husband had not come home when she expected him. Maybe he had been
too busy to attend to the matter. A dozen possible calamities
presented themselves.

Unconsciously he held himself so rigid in his expectancy that he
fairly ached. Ten minutes dragged by, with only the crackle of the
fire on the hearth to disturb the silence of the great room.

Then light feet pattered down the stairs and ran across the broad
hall. The _portière_ was pushed aside and a bright little face looked
in. In another instant Robin's arms were around his neck, and he was
crying over and over in an ecstasy of delight, "Oh, it's Big Brother!